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Google Social Network Site

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Posted 3rd July 2014 at 07:41 AM by imarkedy

Another Google social network site has failed and this time, literally, the doors were closed! That website, located at Orkut.com, was one of Google’s early ventures into social networking and hopefully, it won’t be their last. Google does many things well such as search engines (duh!), paid search advertising as well as free email accounts (Gmail). However, it just hasn’t grasped the concept of social media for business in a way which yields profits for their brand or those who use these platforms.

We wrote an earlier post encouraging readers and students to delete Google Plus accounts and interestingly, never once mentioned Orkut. This failure, though intentional, pretty much sums up the Orkut offering from Google - forgettable. In fairness and although Orkut never quite caught on in the United States, it was popular in other countries such as Brazil and India. We applaud Google’s effort and are sure many lessons were learned which allowed (barely) Google Plus to enjoy a bit more acceptance from the general public than its predecessor.

Oh wait - Plus is now viewed as a failure also. Darn it! Here at SBDC TV, we tend to view social media websites, whether popular or not so much, from a business building perspective. If a website, even if having millions of users, offers no search marketing value or back link traffic for content creators, it is considered a waste of time and with few exceptions, Orkut has always topped this list. There are very few social sites, those which have been in business more than a few years anyway, which we haven’t tested and categorized as either ‘winners’ or ‘losers’. Orkut, however, was in a category all of its’ own. Out testing process is extensive and as we are always searching for new online course material, Orkut was tested in 2010. If memory serves, we spent about 10 minutes on the website and except for occasional check-ins over the years to see how it was developing, have avoided Orkut like the plague because it was then and is now, well, useless.

It wasn’t because of some petty reason like being visually unappealing or difficulty with navigation either. The demographics just didn’t fit our business needs and unless your business website was Spanish or Hindi language based, Orkut held no marketing value. To many, that may seem an insensitive comment but there are certain realities in business and success (or lack thereof) depends on speaking the language of an organization’s demographic as well as offering products packaged in a way which appeals to them. For instance; any who have spent time living ‘down under’, in Australia, well understand that selling washing machines is not hard but trying to get an Aussie, especially home owners who live in suburbs, to buy a dryer is challenging, if not impossible. Australian weather is very agreeable to simply hanging clothes outside which allows savings on energy bills and besides, the continent is hot enough without adding another heat producing device.

Google has billions to spend and with the Orkut flop and challenges with Google+, perhaps they should stick to what Google does best; search engines, paid search and being totally obsessed with Facebook, Dropbox and Amazon’s business models!

Now that we’ve given warning, let’s list key areas to look for when deciding if a social networking platform adds value to your business. For those who believe that simply sharing product and service link(s) on social media websites automatically means website traffic, check out your Twitter or Facebook click-thru rates. It will quickly become apparent how wrong this assumption is.

Here are key areas to check before committing resources to any social network marketing effort;
  1. The ability create a username using industry keyword phrases
  2. Customization options which allow some form of organizational branding
  3. Low maintenance. Having created hundreds of profiles on social media websites, we believe it best to create keyword branded profiles
  4. Back link building opportunities. Although most social sites allow sharing of a business website’s URL in the ‘about us’ section, this placement has little value. Only 10% (or less) of those who view a profile will search out business information sections. When understanding there is a less than 1% click-thru rate from these views, website traffic becomes dismal
  5. Multimedia asset sharing. Whether embedded video, Google documents with clickable links back to your website or other, it’s crucial to only focus on social sites offering some form of ‘give back’ to your organization
One Google property which should be taken seriously is Youtube. Although Youtube is Google’s biggest ‘money pit’ to the tune of a loss equaling hundreds of millions yearly, who could effectively put forth Youtube has no marketing value? Unfortunately, Google has yet to find a way to make Youtube profitable. However, their misfortune and incompetence is an opportunity for the savvy marketer to brand build at minimal cost. Word of warning; do not, under any circumstances, run Youtube video ads! It is tempting to get your message in front of millions but boasting one of the most expensive advertising packages in video marketing, only the best capitalized companies participate in this program.

What’s the problem with those under-capitalized using Youtube video ads?
  1. They are, more than anything else, cost prohibitive
  2. Each click on an ad costs money and unlike its’ paid search advertising platform called Adwords, Google cares more about ‘number of impressions’ for advertisers than ‘quality of impressions’. When viewing Youtube videos, you often view ads which has nothing to do with your interests
When planning a social media campaign, there are myriad, much more effective options than any of Google’s Social Media networks. Google does many things well but social media just isn’t one of them. We’d advise spending your time on much more fruitful platforms.


B.D. Dale
Daily Deal Website Course
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